Scottish fermentation temperatures

Several authors have rather ludicrously claimed that Scottish beer was fermented at near-Lager temperatures. Even more ridiculously claiming that the climates of Edinburgh and Munich are similar. While in reality, they aren’t even in the same climate group.

If you just look at the pitching temperatures, you could be forgiven for thinking Scottish beer was fermented cooler than English. A look at full fermentation records soon put me straight. Many Scottish beers were pitched a few degrees cooler than the English norm of around 60 F.

There’s a simple explanation: a higher percentage of very strong beers were made in Scotland. The higher the gravity, the lower the pitching temperature to accommodate the extra heat generated during fermentation. The maximum fermentation temperatures in England and Scotland were roughly similar.

The other claim is that primary fermentation was much longer in Scotland than in England, because of the low temperature it was carried out at. To put it bluntly, this is total bollocks. Most Scottish brewing records contain a full fermentation record making it easy to check. Scottish beer took no longer to ferment than English.

The William Younger brewing logs have columns charmingly entitled “Heats and Beats in Guile”. They record the progress of the fermentation and when the wort was roused to encourage fermentation. Here’s an example:

William Younger Shilling Ale fermentations in 1848
		Heats and Beats in Guile
Beer	OG	day 1	day 2	day 3	day 4	day 5	day 6	day 7
Table	1035	59º F	60º F	62º F	64º F
42/-	1043	59º F	61º F	63º F	66º F
60/-	1064	58º F	59º F	62º F	65º F
80/-	1074	58º F	59º F	62º F	64º F	66º F	67º F
100/-	1086	57º F	58º F	60º F	63º F	66º F	68º F	68º F
120/-	1103	54º F	56º F	59º F	62º F	66º F	69º F	70º F
140/-	1115	54º F	58º F	62º F	66º F	70º F	72º F
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/3.

Fermented almost as cold as Lager? I think not. Seven days primary fermentation for a beer with an OG of over 1100º is by no means excessive.

I’ll admit that this totally contradicts what W.H. Roberts wrote about Scottish fermentation temperatures:

". . while the English brewers frequently set their worts as high as 75º, or, according to some practical writers, occasionally 80º, the Scottish seldom if ever exceed 58º, and, in some cases, fall so low as 44º.
. . . it is not uncommon for Scottish brewers to have their gyles in the tun for twenty-one days, whilst in England, so long a period as even six days is considered as of rare occurrence."
"Scottish Ale Brewer" by W.H. Roberts, 1847, page 108.

It’s a contemporary account, written by someone with practical experience of brewing. But, In this case, I have to go with the William Younger’s brewing records. They show temperatures well above 58º F and nothing anywhere near as low as 44º F. I’ve never seen a Scottish fermentation that was longer than 7 days. It’s hard to reconcile with Roberts’ description. Perhaps he was talking about older practices that had been superseded.

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Let's Brew Wednesday - 1940 Truman Stock 1

Standing at the top of the Truman strength tree was Stock 1. The base beer for their Barley Wine.

It wasn’t something that Truman brewed that often. After some time maturing in Burton – I assume at this point in wood – Stock 1 was shipped down to London where it was blended with a Running version. The blend then being bottled as No. 1 Burton Barley Wine.

There seems to be much in common with Bass No. 1. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence. They were both at the top end of Burton Ales and were both sold as Barley Wine. The gravities are very similar, in any case.

While the grist contains most of the elements found in Truman’s other beers, there are some differences. The most obvious being that Stock 1 was an all-malt beer. At least a non-adjunct beer. The flaked rice in all their other beers is absent here.

The invert sugar in Truman beers is a bit problematic. Because there’s no indication of which type they were using. Or even if they were using more than one type. You’d expect a Pale Ale to contain either No.1 or No. 2. While No. 3 was the preferred option for Mild Ales.

Based on an analysis from 1953 which gives the colour as around 16 SRM, I’ve assumed No.3 invert was used in the original. That’s the only way to get the colour to the correct shade.

The hopping is insanely heavy. It looks like a beer from 50 or 60 years earlier. There were just short of 6 lbs of hops per 36-gallon barrel. I’ve reduced the quantity a little. But, as the hops were all pretty fresh, not by very much.

Of course, the running version, would have been far less heavily hopped. Sadly, I don’t have a log for that. I do have s Runner and a Stock brewing record from the 1960s. There the hopping of the Runner is about 60% of that of the Stock version. Also after 12 months at least maturing, the bitterness levels in the Stock beer would have fallen a fair bit.

1940 Truman Stock 1
pale malt	17.50 lb	72.92%
high dried malt	5.50 lb	22.92%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.00 lb	4.17%
Fuggles 150 mins	4.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1105.5
FG	1035
ABV	9.33
Apparent attenuation	66.82%
IBU	106
SRM	14
Mash at	155º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	56º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1028 London Ale (Worthington White Shield)

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London Mild Ale during WW I

Courage’s X Ale went through quite a few changes during the war.

There was quite a change in the rate of attenuation. My guess is that they were trying to compensate for the fall in gravity. In 1918, with gravities under 1025º, they were really pushing the limits of what you could call beer. Because of the rules about average gravity, every barrel they brewed at 1021º meant they could brew one at 1039º, or a half barrel at 1047º. It was very tempting to slash the gravity of a big seller like Mild to maximise the amount of stronger, more profitable beer you could brew.

It’s interesting to note that the hopping rate per barrel remaining fairly constant at around 1 pound per barrel when the gravity was more than halved. That’s reflected by the increase in the hopping rate per quarter, which rose from 4-5 lbs to over 10 lbs. Again, I assume that to compensate for the fall in gravity and boost flavour.

The grist was tweaked several times during the war years:

The big increase in the proportion of crystal malt from 1917 on is intriguing. As it seems to correlate with the fall in gravity. It looks like another attempt to compensate for the falling strength of X Ale. While the appearance of black malt corresponds to a fall in the percentage of No. 3 invert sugar. So it’s surely a colour correction.

The 1920 recipe is quite different from the 1914 one: far less base malt, slightly more No. 3 invert, almost three times as much crystal malt.

Courage X Ale 1914 - 1920
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
17th Oct	1914	1054.6	1019.4	4.65	64.47%	4.96	1.05
8th Mar	1915	1049.9	1018.3	4.18	63.33%	4.00	0.78
23rd Sep	1915	1048.2	1011.1	4.91	77.01%	4.96	0.96
11th Oct	1916	1048.2	1007.2	5.42	85.06%	5.00	0.97
9th May	1916	1044.9	1006.9	5.02	84.57%	6.51	1.18
2nd Jan	1917	1045.7	1010.0	4.73	78.18%	3.88	0.76
8th Jun	1917	1041.6	1007.2	4.54	82.67%	8.72	1.16
19th Oct	1917	1034.6	1006.4	3.74	81.60%	7.57	1.13
18th Jan	1918	1034.6	1006.9	3.66	80.00%	7.38	1.13
20th Apr	1918	1023.8	1004.4	2.57	81.40%	9.41	1.01
19th Nov	1918	1021.1	1003.9	2.27	81.58%	10.89	1.01
30th Jun	1919	1023.5	1003.6	2.64	84.71%	6.78	0.75
7th Jul	1919	1027.4	1004.4	3.04	83.84%	8.17	0.99
29th Dec	1919	1037.7	1007.2	4.03	80.88%	5.98	1.00
22nd Apr	1920	1037.7	1007.5	3.99	80.15%	5.91	0.98
Sources:
Courage brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/08/247, ACC/2305/08/248, ACC/2305/08/249, ACC/2305/08/250 and ACC/2305/08/251.

Courage X Ale grists 1914 - 1920
Date	Year	OG	pale malt	black malt	crystal malt	no. 3 sugar	caramel	glucose	black invert
17th Oct	1914	1054.6	82.1%	0.8%	6.1%	11.0%
8th Mar	1915	1049.9	82.8%		6.1%	11.1%
23rd Sep	1915	1048.2	82.4%		6.3%	11.3%
11th Oct	1915	1048.2	82.8%		6.1%	11.1%
9th May	1916	1044.9	80.5%		6.0%	13.4%
2nd Jan	1917	1045.7	75.0%		9.1%	15.9%
8th Jun	1917	1041.6	73.6%		11.3%	15.1%
19th Oct	1917	1034.6	76.2%	1.7%	13.3%	6.6%			2.2%
18th Jan	1918	1034.6	76.1%	1.7%	13.0%	9.2%
20th Apr	1918	1023.8	70.9%	2.9%	18.4%	7.8%
19th Nov	1918	1021.1	64.5%	5.4%	19.4%			10.8%
30th Jun	1919	1023.5	66.3%	2.0%	15.3%	13.6%	2.7%
7th Jul	1919	1027.4	67.6%	2.0%	15.4%	13.7%	1.4%
29th Dec	1919	1037.7	64.4%		19.8%	15.8%
22nd Apr	1920	1037.7	69.1%		16.7%	13.2%	1.0%
Sources:
Courage brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/08/247, ACC/2305/08/248, ACC/2305/08/249, ACC/2305/08/250 and ACC/2305/08/251.

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Old Ale after WW II

After WW II, the term Old Ale rarely referred to a beer that had been aged for any length of time. Mostly, it was just something stronger than usual. And how much stronger that was varied from region to region and brewery to brewery. There was one feature they all had in common: a dark colour.

In the Southeast, Old Ale was effectively a stronger version of Dark Mild. And was often parti-gyled with it.

In the North, it was often something stronger. Old Tom, for example. Or Old Something. Strong, dark beers often had an Old prefix. Often the difference between these stronger types and Barley Wine is blurred.

Bottled Old Ale 1950 - 1965
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1950	Barclay Perkins	No. 1 Southwarke Ale	32	1052.4	1021.1	4.04	59.73%	80
1953	Bentley's Yorkshire Brewery	Old Timothy	45	1075.6	1014.7	7.98	80.56%	100
1953	Bullard	Old Ale	48	1080.5	1026.2	7.06	67.45%	68
1952	Courage	Double Courage	43.5	1068.4	1010.8	7.55	84.21%	150
1953	Duttons	O.B.J.	32	1060.9	1013.7	6.15	77.50%	83
1959	George Gale	Prize Old Ale		1089.3	1006.9	10.95	92.27%	60
1953	Greene King	Suffolk Ale	36	1062.8	1020.7	5.46	67.04%	56
1953	John Smith	Magnet Old Ale	42	1072.5	1022.9	6.44	68.41%	83
1953	JW Green	Dragon's Blood	45	1073.6	1028.1	5.88	61.82%	56
1953	McMullen	Old Time Ale	45	1062.1	1015.1	6.12	75.68%	105
1958	Mitchell & Butler	Amba Pale Old Ale	45	1056.3	1012.4	5.49	77.98%	18
1953	Steward & Patteson	Old Ale	48	1080.3	1011	9.13	86.30%	80
1959	Websters	Old Tom	26	1045.1	1012.5	4.23	72.28%	150
1965	Wrekin	Old Ale	31	1039.8	1012.7	3.39	68.09%	90
1953	Youngs, Crawshay & Youngs	Old John	54	1075.2	1025.3	6.47	66.36%	80
	Average		40.9	1066.3	1016.9	6.4	73.71%	83.9
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

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Harvey's beers in 1889

I've already extracted the details from the Harvey's brewing records which fell into my hands.

How this Harvey's brewing book ended up in the Beards archive is also becoming clearer. Mr. Miles Jenner, head brewers at Harvey's, tells me that Henry John Barrett served an apprenticeship at Harvery's and then later went on to be head brewer at Beards. This looks like it was his personal brewing book.

Moving onto the beeers themsleves, it's quite a small range. Two Milds, a Stock Ale a Pale Ale and a Stout. Even for a small-town brewery, that's pretty minimal. By this late, most breweries would have brewed multiple Stouts and probably a Light Pale Ale (1045-1050º).

All the beers are around the same strength as London equivalents, which slightly surprised me. I'm accustomed to provincial beers being weaker. You can see from the two tables below that there's a very close sorrelatioon between the graities of Harvey and Barclay Perkins.

A couple of the Harvey's beers - SB and Stout - have slightly lower hopping rates. But PA and X have roughly similar rates to the Barclay Perkins beers of the same class.

Interestingly, the rate of attenuation is generally a bit higher in the Harvey's beers.

Harvey's beers in 1889
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1057.6	1013.9	5.79	75.96%	5.70	1.47
XXX	Mild	1075.3	1020.8	7.22	72.43%	6.66	2.39
SB	Stock Ale	1078.9	1018.8	7.95	76.14%	9.02	3.21
PA	Pale Ale	1066.5	1020.2	6.12	69.58%	12.90	3.96
Stout	Stout	1078.7	1026.3	6.93	66.55%	6.65	2.43
Source:
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.

Barclay Perkins beers 1891 - 1892
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1057.0	1016.6	5.34	70.84%	5.95	1.47
KK	Stock Ale	1074.0	1021.1	7.00	71.55%	14.22	4.61
PA	Pale Ale	1063.0	1021.1	5.55	66.58%	12.46	3.03
BS	Stout	1077.0	1027.0	6.61	64.94%	8.56	2.98
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/1/587 and ACC/2305/1/588.

Let's Brew - 1889 Harvey X

Here’s a recipe I never thought I’d write. A Harvey’s beer from before WW I. As it was thought none of their brewing records from this period had survived. It appears that at least one brewing book has survived, just miscataloged as being from another Lewes brewery, Beard.

It doesn’t contain a huge number of different beers. Two Milds, a Stock Ale, a Pale Ale and a Stout. Quite a small range for a Victorian brewer. Then again, they weren’t that large an operation. The maximum brew length was around 50 barrels. They couldn’t have been brewing more than around 10,000 barrels a year.

If you had asked me to guess the gravity of this beer, I’d have said 1050º at the absolute maximum, and more likely 1045º. Why? Because beers tended to be weaker outside London. In 1889, both Barclay Perkins and Whitbread X Ale were 1058º. Or about the same strength as Harvey X.

There’s nothing very complicated about the recipe. It’s just pale malt and invert sugar. Interestingly, it’s No. 2 rather than the No. 3 invert you might expect. Even so, No. 2 is enough to change the colour of the finished beer to what I would call semi-dark. About 20% of the base malt is described as “Smyrna”, that is from the Middle East.

Unusually for the late Victorian period, when huge quantities were being imported, all the hops are English. A combination of Kent from the 1888 harvest and East Kent from 1887 and 1888.

At the bottom of the fermentation chart it says “Run into Puns”. Puns, I assume, standing for puncheons. At 84 gallons, those are pretty large casks. Not usually the sort of size you’d be delivering to pubs.

1889 Harvey X
pale malt	10.00 lb	83.33%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.00 lb	16.67%
Fuggles 85 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1057.5
FG	1014
ABV	5.75
Apparent attenuation	75.65%
IBU	29
SRM	10
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	85 minutes
pitching temp	57.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1332 Northwest ale

Miscatalogued records

Archives aren't perfect. Especially when it comes to cataloguing specialised material, such as brewing records.

Which makes searching for brewing records a sometimes frustrating task. What has this particular archive called them? Brewing books? Brewing journals? Something else entirely? It necessitates a good bit of rumbling around in the catalogue, making sure you've covered all the possibilities.

Then there's the example of the Whitbread brewing records. Where the catalogue has the wrong years for several of the brewing books. I think I'm the only person who has a correct catalogue of them. I suppose I should really have told the archivists.

A third problem is when records are attributed to the wrong company. For years I believed that the earliest IPA brewing log I had was 1837 from Reid. Until I saw some records from the 1820s which were in a completely different format. Which was identical to the format of Reid's 1840s logs. Clearly the 1837 records were from a different brewery. Which, I don't really know. I'm guessing Combe, as the material originated from Watney, Combe, Reid.

Today I came across another example of incorrect attribution. Though I'm scratching my head as to how it could have occurred. It's a brewing book which supposedly comes from Beard's of Lewes.  Yet it has this in the inside cover:

Not only does it say "Harvey & Son" at the top of the page, it also says "Bridge Wharf Brewery", which is the name of the Harvey's brewery.

Has anyone ever looked at this record properly before? You have to wonder.

Southern Brown Ale after WW II

Despite covering a large area of Southeast England, there’s a reasonable amount of consistency in this set of Brown Ales.

The gravities are mostly on the low side, with only two examples over 1035º, and averaging a tad below 1032º. Surprisingly, there are a couple below the magic 1027º. It made little sense to brew a beer weaker than that, because you had to pay tax as if were 1027º. That was the minimum rate of tax.

With middling attenuation – there are a couple of beers with over 80%, but also four below 70%. Which means that the average ABV only just pokes its head above 3%.

There are some pretty watery beers, especially from Simonds. Most examples are well below 3% ABV. It’s odd because Simonds Berry Brown Ale was a reasonably big brand.

As in London, the colours are mostly pretty dark. Though the Portsmouth United and Wethered beers fall into the semi-dark region. In general, these Southern Brown Ales look quite similar to those from London. Which isn’t so surprising as there breweries were mostly not that far from the capital.

Southern Brown Ale after WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1951	Benskin	Nut Brown Ale	16	1032.9	1008.1	3.22	75.38%	83
1952	Brickwoods	Brown Brew	18	1032.2	1008.9	3.02	72.36%	80
1952	Cobb & Co	Brown Ale	18	1034.3	1007.5	3.48	78.13%	80
1950	Ind Coope	Nut Brown Ale	18	1032.3	1008.6	3.07	73.37%	75
1951	Ind Coope	Nut Brown Ale	19	1031.9	1008.3	3.06	73.98%	110
1952	Ind Coope	Nut Brown Ale	19	1030.9	1011.7	2.48	62.14%	83
1952	McMullen	Nut Brown Ale	18	1035.5	1012.6	2.96	64.51%	110
1948	Portsmouth United	Brown Ale	17	1038.2	1005.4	4.27	85.86%	55
1948	Simonds	Brown Ale	18	1025.7	1006.4	2.50	75.10%	105
1949	Simonds	Brown Ale	15	1026.1	1008	2.34	69.35%	140
1952	Simonds	Brown Ale	18	1029.9	1009.7	2.61	67.56%	110
1952	Simonds	Berry Brown Ale	19	1032	1005.5	3.44	82.81%	60
1948	Tamplin	No. 1 Brown Ale	19	1033.6	1008.5	3.25	74.70%	87
1952	Tamplin	No.1 Ale	20	1034.1	1009.7	3.16	71.55%	80
1947	Wethered	Golden Brown Ale	12	1025.6	1004	2.81	84.37%	48
	Average		17.6	1031.7	1008.2	3.04	74.08%	87.1
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.